Coming Home
by Haelia
Summary: The man to whom this shadow belonged was dead, long dead, three years dead. Lestrade had seen the body, the broken face, the crushed ribcage. He had read the autopsy report, the death certificate. He had attended the funeral. Sherlock Holmes was dead. Sherlock Holmes was not sitting here before him now. Post Reichenbach. T for blood, language. Reviews may contain spoilers.
1. Sonata

**A/N: For my dear, sweet, wonderful Cainchan, who drew the cover art which was the inspiration for this story. **

* * *

It was a quiet night, cool with a clear sky, the kind that Greg liked best. He could see the stars as he drove, gleaming against a blanket of midnight velvet. It was the end of August, and summer was beginning to ebb into autumn. Soon the air would chill, children would go back to school, and Greg would trade his oxford-shirt-no-jacket for a twill overcoat. But for now, it was perfect, and he allowed himself to live in the moment.

His house stood on the corner of a quiet street. It was small and modest and sparsely furnished, but it was his, and there wasn't much in the world that carried that label anymore. His house, his car, his job. These things were Lestrade's, his alone, and sometimes they felt like all he had.

Once, three years ago, he had had more. There was John, and there was Sherlock, and there was Sherlock-and-John. Sometimes, back then, there was Sherlock-and-John-and-Lestrade and adventures and killers and firefights, but now there was none of it. Sherlock was dead, John had retreated to Cardiff to open his own practise, and Lestrade was stuck here on his own.

He was used to it.

And now he was home, at the house he had bought exactly sixteen months after Sherlock's death, putting his key into the lock and wondering why on earth the tumblers weren't clicking. He never left the door unlocked. In all his adult life, he had never left home with the door unlocked – why was it unlocked now?

Unconsciously, Greg's left hand strayed to the gun strapped to his hip. The answer was that he _hadn't_ left it unlocked. Someone else had. He bent down to examine the door. If the lock had been picked, it had been done with an expert touch. For a moment, he considered calling for backup. If he was wrong, though, he'd never live it down. He could just see Sally laughing at him for the rest of their careers. Paranoid Lestrade, left his door unlocked and thought he'd been burgled. What a joke! No, thank you.

Greg pushed the door open and stepped inside, his tread cautious as he entered the darkened house. He flicked on a light and surveyed the foyer. Nothing had been disturbed – priceless art on the wall (a gift) had been left untouched. If he was entertaining a thief, it was not a very smart one.

And then he spotted the shoes.

They were sitting beside the runner, one after the other as though the wearer had just stepped out of them. A man's shoes, black leather, well worn. Lestrade knew they weren't his, because they were too small. So... a stupid but polite thief? Lestrade relaxed slightly, but his hand remained on his hip as he explored the house.

He went to the sitting room first, ears straining to hear any sound that might give his intruder away, but the silence was cut only with his own breathing. Nothing in the sitting room had been touched. The kitchen and hallway were intact, too, as was the guest room. That just left his bedroom, and he was starting to wonder if he was going mad, until he noticed that the door was ajar. A door he normally kept closed.

_This is it,_ he thought, drawing close to the door, his steps silent as a cat's. _Either someone is in this room, or I have finally come completely undone._ With a splayed hand, Greg pushed the door open, and it gave inward on silent hinges.

The figure seated on the bed was so jarringly, hauntingly familiar that for a moment, Greg did believe he had gone mad. Even in the near-dark, the profile was unmistakable, the long curve of the torso impossible to be anyone else's. But no, it couldn't be, it could not. The man to whom this shadow belonged was dead, long dead, three years dead. Lestrade had seen the body, the broken face, the crushed ribcage. He had read the autopsy report, the death certificate. He had attended the funeral. Sherlock Holmes was dead. Sherlock Holmes was not sitting here before him now.

Tears sprung to his eyes. _I thought we were done with this_, he thought, waiting for the ghost to pluck the sentence from his very brain, as it always did in these nightmares. _I thought you were done with me._

Then the figure moved, leaned forward slightly, turned an icy gaze toward him. And spoke. "Lestrade..."

He felt the breath freeze in his chest, his stomach seizing at the sound of that voice. The hand that had been on his gun now scrabbled for the light switch, nails scraping the paint until he found it and flicked it on.

Sherlock flinched at the sudden light, dipping his head to protect his eyes, sucking a breath through his teeth.

Greg swayed slightly and forced his eyes to focus. Sherlock was there, alive, breathing, sitting on the edge of his bed in bare feet and a cheap, crumpled suit. He found himself frozen, captivated, unable to move or even look away as he watched Sherlock adjust to the light and slowly turn his head toward him again. In three years, the boy had aged ten. Even from here, Lestrade could catch sight of flecks of grey in those wild curls, now worn too long. A scar stretched down the side of the long, white column of Sherlock's neck, a roadmap that just began there and ended only god-knew-where. He was sporting a black eye and his posture was slack, exhausted. Greg thought he could see him shaking.

"Body double," the battered young man said without prelude. His voice was thick and smooth and deep, as intoxicatingly Sherlock as it had always been, even tainted by pain and weariness. "I had to... to keep you safe..."

In a moment, Lestrade had crossed the room and was pulling Sherlock to his feet, peering into his eyes and squeezing his shoulders to assure himself that he was really there. "Are you real?" he choked, unable to believe it.

"Yes," Sherlock said firmly. For three burning seconds, he stared into Lestrade's eyes before his knees began to tremble and his head dropped to the DI's shoulder.

Greg swallowed hard and pushed him back down onto the bed again, gently as though he were made of blown glass. He could hear each breath click as though it were catching on something in his throat. He was sick, battered, and much too thin – he looked like a prisoner of war, Lestrade thought with a chill. Without a moment's hesitation, he tugged his mobile out of his pocket, keying in John's number.

"No," Sherlock croaked, staying him with a hand on his wrist. "John can't know. Not yet." He lifted his gaze to Lestrade's face. "Please."

Greg thought he might choke, or vomit. His head was reeling. Without thinking, he was putting his phone away, taking Sherlock's hands in his own, shaking his head, struggling to understand.

"Not yet," Sherlock repeated weakly. "He won't... he's not ready, he can't... can't know..."

"Okay, all right, Sherlock," Lestrade murmured, barely hearing himself. He didn't understand, but it didn't matter. "Let's get you cleaned up. Come on, nice and easy." Carefully, he pulled Sherlock to his feet again, cringing at the whimper that escaped his lips. "That's it... slowly, I've got you."

* * *

Two broken ribs, a mess of cuts and bruises, a nasty chest cold, and a festering wound in the left shoulder. This was the macabre inventory that Lestrade took as he gingerly tugged Sherlock out of his clothes and helped him shower and change. A roadmap of other, older wounds – scars both new and ancient – became visible to Lestrade as he worked. Sherlock explained in a faint voice where he had been over the last three years. Moriarty's web had stretched over the globe – starting here, in London, and spreading like a cancer through Europe, Asia, the Americas. In the process of taking it all apart, Sherlock had broken bones, ingested poison, contracted rare illnesses, and stitched his own wounds. He had killed men, tortured others, stolen, lied.

"It wasn't supposed to be so long," Sherlock said in a near-whisper, as he slowly coaxed his limbs into the t-shirt and pyjama bottoms that Lestrade provided. He crumpled down onto the edge of the bed again, head in hands as he steadied himself from the exhaustion of all this activity. "Once everything began to unfold, it was all a lot bigger than even I had anticipated." He took a shuddering breath, shaking his head softly. "I couldn't risk coming back sooner. It would have jeopardised everything I was fighting for. I kept track of you, both of you, through it all. But there was no way to... if... I-I couldn't..."

Lestrade sensed his growing distress, and rubbed a hand over Sherlock's back in gentle circles as he took a seat beside him. "Shh. There's time for explanations later."

Faster than he should have been able, Sherlock lifted his head, focussing an unsteady gaze on Lestrade's face. "You aren't angry?"

The answer to that question was complicated, but Greg smoothed it over with another truth. "I'm glad you're alright, lad. I'm glad you're back." The hand on Sherlock's back drifted upward, carding through his wet hair. "We can talk about the rest later. You need to get better first, okay?" He surveyed the broken body, winced again at the prominent ribcage, the collarbones that stood in sharp relief above the collar of his borrowed shirt. "Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No. Thank you. I'm... I'm so tired..."

Greg nodded. "Okay. Rest, then. We'll talk more in the morning."

For half a second, Sherlock looked terrified, until he smoothed the expression from his face with practised efficiency.

"It's alright," Lestrade whispered, scared to know what it was that caused Sherlock such terror. With a light touch, he guided him to lie back on the bed, pulling the blanket up around his shoulders.

Sherlock acquiesced, fingers ghosting over the DI's wrist as he lay down, a silent plea that never reached his lips. His eyes were falling shut even as he placed his head on the cool pillow.

Lestrade settled himself on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch but not close enough to accidentally brush any fresh wounds. "Sleep," he urged, when he saw the tension marring his friend's face.

It took only minutes. Greg stayed exactly where he was, running his fingers through the damp hair, over a shoulder, down the curve of Sherlock's back. He remained there, a quiet guard in the night, until he felt and heard Sherlock's breath deepen and slow, until he saw the gaunt face relax in sleep.

And even then he didn't leave, instead settling in a chair beside the bed, afraid to leave him alone, afraid to fall asleep. Afraid that this was a dream, and that he would wake up and be alone again.


	2. Nocturne

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed or PM'd me supporting this story. I have decided to continue it. Please enjoy!**

**Follow me on tumblr: heatherroneous dot tumblr dot com.**

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* * *

The alarm clock went off the next morning at six AM, just as it always did. Greg flailed and struggled for a moment, re-orienting himself from the unfamiliar position of the chair beside the bed, and finally managed to throw himself forward and slam his palm down against the snooze button. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but the insistent bleat of the alarm and the unhappy knot in his back both said that he had done. With a muffled groan, he stretched and blinked blearily at his surroundings, his vision adjusting to the darkness slowly.

The bed was empty, he noticed with his heart in his throat. It had clearly been slept in, and so Lestrade was comforted that the events of the previous evening had not been a dream, but it still begged the question: Where was Sherlock?

His unvoiced question was answered by the sound of running water from the en-suite bathroom. Greg released a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding as he stood, smoothing wrinkles from his sleep-rumpled clothing. The door to the washroom was open just a hair, and in the light that poured out, he could see a sliver of Sherlock's profile. Cautiously, almost shyly, Greg approached the door, unsure whether to give him his space or say something. Sherlock had his shirt off, and was probing the wound in his shoulder with slick, bloody fingers.

"Come in," he said suddenly.

Greg jumped, coughed, and gently pushed at the door. It swung wide beneath his fingers, and Sherlock's stark form greeted him once more. It was as startling now, in the clarity of the harsh bathroom lights, as it had been last night by the bedroom lamps. As he watched the blood running down Sherlock's chest, he couldn't help but imagine how he'd acquired that wound. Had it been a knife from an assailant in the night? Had he rolled out of the way of a second attack, crashing into something that cracked the floating ribs on the right side? "Sorry," Greg murmured. He shook himself mentally. "Can I help?"

"It's fine. And no," replied Sherlock. "Glass."

"Sorry?"

"Glass. It was glass. I jumped out of a window. It was poorly timed." His lips thinned to a harsh line and he yanked thread out of the wound, eyes steadily fixed on the mirror. Greg realised with a stomach-knotting start that he was pulling out self-administered sutures.

"Jesus-fucking-Christ," he swore under his breath. He closed the space between them and pawed Sherlock's hands away, inspecting the wound anew with the aid of the bright fluorescents. "Did you stitch this yourself?"

"A week ago," Sherlock said through his teeth.

"I didn't see these threads last night..."

"Because I didn't want you to."

For a moment, they were frozen in time. Lestrade's fingers stilled above Sherlock's shoulder, his focus migrating to the detective's battered face. All of a sudden, it was nine, maybe ten years ago – Sherlock was in his twenties, just a kid. He had gotten into _another_ fight with a strung-out junkie, and was waiting patiently while Lestrade put his pieces back together. Tomorrow they would talk about it and then Sherlock would disappear for two days; Lestrade's heart would stop beating for hours at a time until he got a cryptic text telling him to arrest a French woman as the culprit in a case that had been cold for fifteen years.

But then the alarm clock started screeching from the bedroom again and it was the present. Sherlock was not wounded in a fight with a junkie, and he was not going to solve a cold case. Sherlock was broken, Sherlock was different. Sherlock was bleeding all over the washroom worktop and Lestrade had _no_ idea why.

"Hang on," Greg choked, and disappeared into the bedroom proper. He went over to the bedside table and unplugged the blasted contraption – it was that or throw it at the nearest wall – and hurried back to Sherlock's side, half afraid that he would disappear if he was out of sight for too long. Thankfully, he was still there, viciously tearing thread from the gash in his shoulder. "Let me do that," Greg said, wincing at the severity with which Sherlock was treating the wound. "Please."

"No. Nearly there." One more yank, and the thread popped free. Sherlock hissed through a clenched jaw.

"That was not necessary," Greg scolded softly, his own face reflecting the dark-haired man's pain. He brushed past him and went for the cupboard, pulling out first aid supplies he had only just put away a few hours ago. With the ease of much practise, he rinsed the wound with antiseptic and water, inspecting its depth with a critical eye. "Can you even use that arm with this the way it is?"

Sherlock gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Well enough. Can I borrow some clothes?"

"Obviously. I mean, you – Wait."

They froze again. Sherlock was looking at Greg carefully, waiting for him to draw a conclusion that he himself no doubt thought obvious. A frown twitched between the detective's dark brows, and Greg mirrored the expression.

"You're... You're not staying."

"I can't," replied Sherlock softly. "I'm not done yet."

"Why did you come at all, then?"

It was not meant to sting, but Greg could see that it had. Something flashed through Sherlock's eyes, quick like a lightning strike and then gone, but it was clear enough to him. Sherlock took a breath as if to say something, but closed his mouth before the words escaped. When he tried again, his voice was hoarse.

"I needed... Obviously, I had..."

Shaking his head, Lestrade cut him off from finishing that sentence. He didn't want to know. He couldn't bear to hear it, not if Sherlock thought he was just going to turn around and leave. "Look – let me help. Please, let me help. Let's call John, bring him down, we'll figure it out together, just like – "

"No. _No_." Sherlock was shaking his head adamantly, and then he was pushing Greg's hands away and slapping a bandage on his shoulder and cleaning up the first aid things. "It was a mistake to come here, it's still too soon. I have to go, I have – the last thread is here in London, and I have to find it, I have to cut it. You can't call John, Lestrade, don't call John. If he knows, it will... Just don't. Just don't."

"Sherlock, you're not making sense. Stop this." Greg reached for him, tried to still his hands as he tidied up the worktop in a frenzy. It was as if he was trying to erase all evidence of his ever having been here. He flinched and snapped his wrist out of Greg's grasp and shook his head, mumbling under his breath how he shouldn't have come, and Greg wanted to shake him. "Stop, Sherlock, look at me." He closed his hands around a pair of too-thin arms and physically turned his wayward detective to face him. "You're already here. You can't change that."

Silence. Was it sorrow darkening Sherlock's gaze?

Lestrade's voice dropped to a near-whisper, gruff and pleading. "You're an idiot if you think I'll let you walk away now you're here." His dark eyes bore into Sherlock, daring him to challenge him on this. "If you don't want my help, fine, but look at the state of you. You're sick, you're bleeding, you're half starved. You can't do anything like this. Am I right?"

"Lestrade – "

"Am I right?"

Taut sinews, hardened with much recent use, tensed further in Greg's grip. Sherlock exhaled slowly, eyes downcast as though the floor tiles might obligingly swallow him up and end this conversation. However, it was clear he could not argue. He did not even make the attempt.

Lestrade's grip slackened and fell away from the detective's arms. "Let me in, don't, whatever. We'll talk about that later. Just... get _better_ first." He found himself repeating last night's mantra in his head. Repair the damage, investigate the causes after. _Precisely the opposite of what I do everyday._ He reached out, flicked a dark curl away from Sherlock's face. Neither of them spoke about the way that Sherlock flinched away from that harmless touch. Greg chewed on his tongue and turned for the door, intending to go and fetch a fresh set of clothing, when Sherlock's fingers brushed his shoulder.

"I wouldn't put you in danger," Sherlock said, when Greg turned back to look him in the eye.

"I know," Lestrade said.

"No, you don't. You have no idea."

Gently, Greg pulled at Sherlock's hand. "Come on. Clothes, breakfast. Rest. We aren't going to worry about anything else."

* * *

An hour later, Greg witnessed something he had never seen before in his life, and had never thought he would: Sherlock eating ravenously. He poked idly at his own plate and watched with relief as Sherlock downed everything offered to him. Some natural colour slowly returned to his cheeks, and when he finally did stop, Greg had a feeling that it was only because his chest cold was affecting his appetite. Well... that, and they had already polished off an eighteen-egg carton between them. His surprise must have shown.

"Been sleeping rough," Sherlock said by way of explanation, gesturing with his fork as he spoke around a final mouthful of fried egg. "Came straight here from Morocco. Spent everything on the ticket."

Greg blinked.

"Boat," Sherlock clarified, and disappeared behind the rim of a teacup.

"Ah."

"Are you going to work?"

Good question. Greg considered it at length. "Are you safe here?"

Sherlock's expression turned grim as he poured himself another cup of tea. "No less so than anywhere else. I've quite shaken anyone who might have been pursuing me, though – and I doubt anyone is, at present. In a few days' time, I won't be able to make that guarantee, but for now, you can be assured of it."

Greg nodded, and watched his friend for a long while, the way he handled his teacup with restless agitation, passing it from hand to hand between sips. He noted how Sherlock kept adjusting the borrowed clothing, pulling it away from his skin repeatedly as though it were suffocating him. He observed him glancing toward the door behind him every so often, clearly uncomfortable with its placement but saying nothing about it.

"I won't bolt," Sherlock stated blandly, when he noticed Greg looking. "You said yourself, I'm hardly capable."

"No, I know," Lestrade replied, shaking his head. "I was just... You seem..."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah," Greg sighed. "Yeah, I know."

* * *

It was bizarre, to be in his office at the Yard while he knew that Sherlock was at his house. At points, Greg wondered if it was even true – who was to say it wasn't all some strange hallucination his brain had invented to help him cope with his pathetic life? There was no way of making sure, either. He had no way of contacting Sherlock from his office just to ask if he was alive (it wouldn't be safe if he had anyway), and so he spent the day in a sort of faraway haze, his mind always wandering home, following Sherlock through the halls of his house, watching him inspect the developments of the last three years, watching him sprawl on the sofa in the living room for a kip, watching him pick at the sparse offering of food in the cupboards. His mind was split in two, and the larger portion was always at home.

"The body was found in the basement," Sally read from a report.

_There's a ghost in my house_, Lestrade thought.

"Apparently the husband found her as he was getting in from work this morning."

_I'll get home and walk right through him, because he's not really there._

"Time of death was between two and three in the morning."

_Sherlock Holmes is sleeping in my bed, when he's supposed to be in a hole in the ground._

"It was meant to look like a suicide, but there are defensive wounds on the forearms and hands."

_I believe in Sherlock Holmes – didn't I say that once? _

"Sir?"

_What if the neighbours notice him and call the police? Break-ins aren't my division..._

"Greg?"

Lestrade blinked himself back into the present and fixed Sally with as mild a look as possible. "Mm? So, not suicide then? Have we looked at the husband's alibi?"

Biting her lip, Donovan set the crime scene report aside, leaning forward over Greg's desk. "Are you... okay?"

"Yeah," Greg replied with a dismissive shrug. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You look a bit off. Pale, like. Are you getting a cold?"

Greg cleared his throat. "No, I'm fine, I'm just..." He pinched the bridge of his nose and scraped his composure together. It promptly spilled back into a puddle in the bottom of his skull again, and he gave up. "You know, I think I'm getting a migraine."

Sally made a face. "You need a ride home?"

"Nah, I can make it. I am gonna go, though. Okay? I'll... I'll see you tomorrow. Take Anderson with you to the Saldana crime scene. Have someone corroborate the husband's story. Talk to the neighbours."

"Yeah, okay," Sally said, watching with a wary eye as Greg gathered his things. "You sure you're alright?"

Greg waved away her concern with one hand as he fished his keys out of a desk drawer. "I will be. See you tomorrow then."

"See ya..."

* * *

_He exists. He's here. I'm not hallucinating. _Greg stood silent in the threshold of the bedroom, watching the sleeping figure on his bed. The figure was alive, was breathing, was wearing his clothes, was curled catlike on top of the duvet. Lestrade wondered fleetingly if he could blame his previous doubt on sleep deprivation and quietly took a quilt from the settee in the corner, spreading it over Sherlock's motionless form. The detective sighed in his sleep and curled up tighter.

It was strange, but that evening passed in just as unremarkable a fashion as had 1,095 evenings before it. Greg ordered Chinese delivery, downed a beer, and watched a recording of last night's footy match. He did the dishes and read a chapter of a well-worn detective novel to the soundtrack of the nightly news.

Around eight, a stomach-clenching, guttural scream shook his evening mediocrity to the ground and sent a white blaze of terror through his spine.

Lestrade vaulted the back of the sofa and scrambled for the bedroom, tripping in his sock feet as he cleared the hallway, his brain repeating one word in his head: _Sherlock-Sherlock-Sherlock_. His first impulse was offense – find the attacker, neutralise the threat – but a quick scan of the room showed that there was no threat to be neutralised except that which a tortured mind invented.

"Sherlock," Lestrade called as he crossed the room swiftly, moving toward the bed where Sherlock lay with his neck arched back and eyes wide as he struggled to separate dream from reality. He had his hands in his hair, gripping the sides of his own head like a madman. Lestrade sat on the edge of the bed and put his hands on Sherlock's, coaxing him into wakefulness.

At the unexpected touch, Sherlock jumped and pulled away, sitting up as he shied from Lestrade, large eyes rolling to meet his. Then, as suddenly as this madness had taken over, it left him, and Sherlock's eyes sparked recognition as he gulped down air like a man newly pulled from the depths of a river. His whole body seemed to crumple: he pulled knees to chest and dropped his head down on top of them, arms folded protectively against himself. "I'm sorry," he wheezed, his voice keening from the strain on his throat. "I'm sorry, I..."

"It's okay," Greg said quickly. "It's all right, it's fine." Tentatively, he reached out and touched Sherlock's arm. The skin beneath his fingers quivered, and Sherlock heaved a shuddering sigh that rattled through his chest. With little thought for the consequences, Greg moved up beside him on the bed so that he was sitting with his back against the headboard. He draped a strong arm around Sherlock's narrow shoulders and pulled him close, surprised when the detective leaned into the embrace and rested his head against Lestrade's shoulder.

"I don't want to talk about it," Sherlock said weakly, and his breath whispered over Greg's neck.

"Okay."

Minutes ticked by in silence. Greg continued to hold his friend together, and slowly he mended. His heart slowed to a normal rhythm; his shoulders relaxed and his head fell neatly into the crook of Greg's neck. They sat like that for a long time – half an hour or more – their hearts beating in tandem as the ghosts slunk away from the darkened room. Greg knew they would not leave completely. They may never leave, but he could try to hold them at bay for now.

After a time, Sherlock swallowed hard and spoke in a voice already tinged with drowsiness: "It was only a dream."

Greg nodded gently, fingers skating over the slim column of a long arm, warm beneath the fabric of his shirt. "Only a dream."


	3. Etude

**A/N: Bonus chapter!**

* * *

"Snipers..." Greg was dumbfounded.

Sherlock lay draped across the sofa in the sitting room with his eyes closed. One hand rested idly on his chest as it rose and fell with each ragged breath; the other gestured languidly as he spoke. "Three," he added.

"But you saw it coming. You had time to prepare. Why didn't you ask for help?"

Shaking his head, Sherlock sat up, wincing with the effort as he looked to Greg with eyes that pleaded with him to understand. "I had time to prepare, but I was not sure for what I was preparing. I didn't know that... I..." He took a deep breath and started again. "There were factors for which I had not accounted for. And I wasn't about to endanger your life by inviting you into my plans. Regardless of what I had done initially, stopping Moriarty's global network would have been impossible if I had been alive. I was under investigation for kidnapping, and most likely a host of other crimes as well."

It was impossible to deny the truth in that statement. At the very least, Sherlock would have been under close surveillance after questioning, if not in custody. Any movement would have been difficult, and anything considered remotely suspicious would have resulted in his immediate arrest. The only way out, apparently, had been to go along with Moriarty's plan. Sherlock Holmes had to die in order to stop his greatest enemy.

"Is he really dead?" Greg asked, suspicions fully aroused. Nothing would have surprised him at this point.

"I should say so," Sherlock murmured, sinking back into the couch cushions. He lay his head down again, tired grey eyes staring unseeingly at the cold grate of the fireplace. There was something mournful about the way he spoke, and it chilled Greg to the bone.

He watched him carefully for a few minutes. Sherlock didn't seem to notice, apparently lost in thought, his expression vacant. Greg couldn't help thinking that he was looking at a stranger, a whole new Sherlock who was at once similar and yet entirely different from the one who had stepped off the roof of a hospital three years ago. This new Sherlock didn't care for expensive clothes or triple murder or showing off. He was battle-worn and weary, and his wants and desires were simple. Clean water, a safe place to lay his head. And, occasionally, quiet companionship.

Greg could not keep the question from his lips any longer. "What happened to you, while you were gone?"

Sherlock blinked as if someone had suddenly turned the light on in a darkened room. He seemed to wake a little from his stupor, eyes rolling to find Lestrade in the glow of the side-table lamp. As soon as they alighted upon him, they flicked away again, and Sherlock let them slide closed as he spoke. "A lot of things," he said distantly. "Nothing that bears repeating."

"Did you kill them?" Lestrade asked before he could stop himself. "The others? The agents?"

"Yes," Sherlock said without hesitation. "Most of them. There were a few - the lower levels, the grunts - who could be convinced to disappear quietly into a life of petty crime. Eyes will have to be kept on them."

A cold vice had clamped down hard over Greg's chest. "Your eyes?"

"Perhaps I have my own network now," Sherlock said softly. Then, without warning: "I heard about your transfer."

It took a moment for Greg to wake from his introspection and understand what his friend meant, but when the concept finally rammed home, he shook his head. "It was temporary. No big deal."

"Still, it can't look good on your record."

Greg winced. "Yeah. It really doesn't, does it?"

"I'm sorry."

Those two words hung in the air between them. Greg filled the silence with two of his own. "It's okay."


	4. Trio

"I want my violin."

The request was softly spoken, a reticent susurration uttered in darkness, nearly indistinguishable from the rasp and crackle of the fire. To Greg, however, it might well have been music. Allegro in A minor: a profound change from the troubled lament of the past two weeks. A small, fleeting sign of normalcy. It left him speechless.

Sherlock pulled his legs beneath himself, so that he was curled compactly into the armchair by the fire, his eyes always on it. The firelight infused tendrils of titian into the wide, pale irises. "Can you get it?"

"John has it." Greg cringed, setting aside his casework and standing up from the dining table. He stretched the kinks out of his back and shoulders and strode to the sofa, dropping down into it with a contemplative sigh. In the time Sherlock had been back, not once had they discussed anything like this. They didn't talk about John, didn't talk about life Before.

Sherlock didn't answer, but his eyes narrowed on the fireplace. He blinked rapidly, sharpening his focus, thinking.

"We could go and see him," Greg said, as evenly as he could.

A spasm ticked the masseter muscle in Sherlock's face.

Lestrade knew he had trapped him. Sherlock was penniless, and he wouldn't ask Greg to buy him something as expensive as a violin. Besides, he didn't want _a_ violin, he wanted _his _violin, the beloved Strad he'd played for years.

Sherlock must have read something in his face, because he tensed and fixed the DI with a wary look. "Lestrade," he said slowly. A warning.

But Greg shook his head, leaning forward. "Look, I think you ought to give it some thought. You've been back a while, and now you're back on your feet, I think it could be good for you to see him. Sherlock, it would be good for _him _to see _you_. He needs to know you're alive. I can't be the only one."

"You don't understand."

"No, I don't," the DI agreed readily. "So help me."

Sherlock stood then, a flurry of agitation, and began to pace the length of the sitting room. The firelight flickered with each pass. "As I said before: I'm not finished. There is one thread left to cut. One of Moriarty's agents lies in wait in London, and he knows I am here."

Greg's stomach tightened. "Wait, wait. You said they couldn't follow you here."

"I said he couldn't track me _here_. But he knows I'm in London. He's been dogging me for weeks." He happened to glance at Lestrade then, and gave him a withering look when he saw the confusion on the DI's face. "I was in London for two months before I came to you."

Two months. It was an eerie feeling, to think that Sherlock had been back all that time and Greg simply hadn't known. What had he been doing while Sherlock was sleeping in gutters and running from faceless assailants? Wooing Molly? Going to the cinema? Watching football? He gestured toward Sherlock's left shoulder, indicating the mostly-healed wound hidden by his borrowed oxford shirt. "Then did this... agent, this last thread of yours, he did that to your shoulder?"

"I told you, I mistimed a jump out of a window. It was the glass that cut me," Sherlock said irritably.

Greg waited patiently. "And he was the reason you had to jump out of a window in the first place...?"

Sherlock nodded bitterly, absently passing one hand over the spot above his broken ribs. He continued his restless prowl across the room. "Among other things..."

Sitting back, Greg crossed his arms. "I don't see what this has to do with John."

"It has nothing to do with him, that's the point," Sherlock hissed. "It has nothing to do with you, either, and you'll have no part of it."

"What if I can help?"

"You can't."

"What if I can?"

"Involving you - either of you - would be far too dangerous. It is out of the question. Drop it."

Greg bristled. "Well, you going it alone is out of the question," he snapped. His tone was much sharper than he had intended, and he winced at the way Sherlock jumped, but it was effective insomuch as the detective had ceased his laps around the room and was now looking at him attentively. He took a steadying breath and went on, "You seem to forget who we are. You underestimate us. John was a soldier and I'm a cop - we can handle ourselves. You're not protecting anyone by putting yourself in danger."

In a moment, Sherlock's features had hardened. It was reminiscent of times Before, but still chillingly unfamiliar. He turned away, placing one hand in his pocket and the other on the mantelpiece. He rested his head on the back of his hand and heaved a cavernous sigh. "I did what I had to do. You would have been killed otherwise."

"I know." It was true: Sherlock had explained everything. Greg understood, he truly did, but he could not see why it wasn't different now, why he couldn't help, and why he was being forced to keep Sherlock's existence a secret from John. He stood, hands in pockets, and stepped around the coffee table, watching his friend sadly. "I know you've only ever done what needed to be done, Sherlock, but in this I can help you. Let me."

"And John?"

"Him too. He'll want to, once you've explained everything."

"He'll hate me."

"Maybe a bit."

Sherlock lifted his head just enough to see Lestrade's face.

Greg could see the anxiety lining Sherlock's features, and it wiped the sarcastic smile from his own mouth. "He won't hate you."

"You don't know him like I do," Sherlock stated flatly, dropping his gaze again.

Well... Lestrade couldn't argue with that.

* * *

Sherlock remained undecided for days. His health had mostly returned, and he had begun making plans for his next move - had even let Lestrade in on some of them. It looked like he was starting to warm to Greg's idea, but John was the furthest thing from their conversations. The DI was doing his best not to force the issue. He knew that if pressed, Sherlock's resolve would harden and he would shut down entirely. He might even leave if he became agitated enough, so for a while Greg walked on eggshells.

Then, one day, the decision was made for them both.

"Sherlock, this is infected."

"Don't be daft. It's nearly healed."

"It _was_, but you reopened it again. And now it's infected. I told you you were doing too much too fast."

"Well, I can't be expected to - ah!" Sherlock flinched under Greg's examination by touch and shied away, craning his neck to get a better look at the wound for himself. It was swollen and red and oozing again, and smelled faintly. He groaned and lifted his gaze to glare at his shirtless reflection, grey eyes following the angry outline of red around the hole in his shoulder. As he did, he caught the look that Greg was giving him, and he shook his head stiffly. "Don't."

"Sherlock..."

"You're not calling John."

"We're a bit out of our depth here, don't you think?" Lestrade shifted his weight uncomfortably. "That looks really bad."

"I've had worse," Sherlock said flatly. He slathered an antiseptic creme onto the wound and covered it with a bandage, an awkward one-handed dance that he did not ask for assistance with. He glared coolly at Lestrade. "Don't do it."

"I won't."

Five hours later, as he snatched a thermometer out of Sherlock's mouth, he wished he had defied his friend's orders and called John a long time ago.

"You have a choice," Lestrade said sternly, leaning in to catch Sherlock's eye. "I can call John, or take you to hospital. One way or another, you're going to have that shoulder looked at."

"I'm fine."

"Sherlock, _sitting up_ does not necessarily denote _fine_. Just because you don't feel sick doesn't mean that something isn't wrong - think of your mission. How much longer can you afford to sit still like this before something must be done? Not long, am I right?"

Sherlock's only response was to glower darkly.

"If you're stuck here, unable to use that left arm for anything, your man could get away," Lestrade continued. "He could disappear. Worse yet, he could find you. You're better off having it seen to. We could go to a hospital somewhere else, where they won't recognise you."

"It isn't about being recognised."

"Then let me call him, Sherlock!"

Under the vanilla glow of the bedroom sconces, the two men stared hard at one another, locked in a silent battle. _He has to know I'm right_, Lestrade thought, meeting Sherlock's gaze head-on, unflinchingly resolute. _That, or... he'll go over the edge and leave. Could I stop him if that happened? Would I try?_

"Fine."

The word echoed tinnily throughout the room, the deep baritone of Sherlock's voice sinking into Greg's chest like a rock. He breathed a sigh of relief and started to speak, to tell Sherlock that it would be okay, he'd set everything up, but he closed his mouth when Sherlock's right hand found his shirtfront, clutching onto the placket row down the middle. Their eyes met, and there was a deep-set apprehension in Sherlock's.

Greg covered the hand with his own, and gave a tight-lipped smile. "Uh... might do with a haircut first, though..."

Sherlock chuckled weakly, and the DI counted it as a success, considering the circumstances.

* * *

Greg managed everything. With Sherlock basically in hiding, there would be no getting him onto a train or into a car to Cardiff, so Lestrade arranged for John to come to London. It wasn't hard. The two of them met occasionally for dinner and drinks, and convincing John to come out took only a short telephone conversation. He did not tell him specifically what was going on, but he did vaguely indicate that something important was happening.

"Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" John chuckled, and the sound was full of static over the telephone line. "Did you propose?"

"What? No, no. Nothing like that. Jesus." Greg forced a laugh and dragged a hand through his hair. "No, listen - we'll, ah, we'll talk about it when you get here, but, um... Tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, tomorrow works for me. I'll try and clear out of here a bit early. Meet at your place?"

"Sounds good."

And it was as easy as that. Greg rang off feeling quite satisfied with the whole arrangement, but Sherlock was a mess when he heard about the conversation later that day.

"It's misleading."

"Well, what would you have preferred I tell him?" Lestrade asked, pocketing his phone. "Good morning, John, Sherlock's not dead, care for a spot of tea?"

"Anything would have been preferable. He will be entirely unprepared for the shock of - "

"He's a grown man, Sherlock. He'll deal with the shock." Greg narrowed his eyes, studying his friend. He watched the way he picked at his clothes, his rigid expression, the way he kept shaking his head in disapproval. "You're nervous."

Sherlock abruptly stopped fidgeting. He sat instead, and took a slow breath. "He is not ready."

"You are not ready. Were you this nervous coming to see me?"

"I was delirious with fever."

"Yeah. Sure you were."

* * *

Lestrade got up the next day to find Sherlock standing in the dining room staring out a south-facing window and had the distinct impression that he had not slept at all the previous night. He crossed the room and plucked at the back of his shirt. "Come with me," he ordered softly.

Sherlock half-turned, eyebrows raised in curious expectation. Greg beckoned again with one hand and Sherlock followed, albeit somewhat warily. From the kitchen, Greg dragged out a bar-stool and headed for the bathroom.

"Ah," murmured Sherlock, seeming to understand what this meant.

In the bathroom, Greg set the stool in front of the mirror. "Sit," he said, and watched as his charge obeyed. Then he draped a towel over Sherlock's shoulders and picked up a pair of scissors from the countertop. He ran his fingers through the detective's hair, his brows twitching together ever so slightly. "I haven't done this in a long time."

Sherlock watched his face in the mirror, his own expression mild. He cocked his head to one side. "You don't have to," he offered.

Greg couldn't help but roll his eyes in response. "You look like a homeless person."

"I am a homeless person."

Slowly, Greg pulled a curl straight between his fingers. _Snip-snip _went the little scissors. Dark hair fell to the floor, tendrils of black against a white backdrop. Greg and Sherlock both looked down at the first casualties, then back up at one another's reflections. Sherlock nodded, and Greg snipped again.

Many, many _snip-snips _later, Sherlock resembled his old self a little more closely. Minus the scars, minus the grey flecks at his temples, minus the total lack of Sherlockian mannerisms - at least he looked somewhat like a person John might recognise. Hopefully it would be enough, at least initially. They quietly swept up the scraps of hair from the tile floor and Greg went to work.

When he got home that evening he found Sherlock standing in his bedroom, buttoning on a shirt with shaking fingers. Quicksilver eyes lifted to meet Lestrade's as the DI crossed the threshold, and it was then that Greg realised he had failed to purchase any better-fitting clothes for Sherlock in the two weeks he had been living here. It had been the furthest thing from his mind. Standing there now, battered and too thin in Lestrade's shirt and trousers, he looked like a child playing dress-up in his father's clothes.

"Why are we doing this?" Sherlock demanded suddenly.

Greg smiled patiently. "Because he deserves to know, and you need his help."

They stood in silence for a few moments. Greg reached out and did up the three remaining buttons. "And because it will make you happy."

* * *

At seven o'clock on the dot, the doorbell rang. Greg told Sherlock to hang back and wait, to let him at least break the news first. He obediently slunk away into the shadows, and Greg went to the door to let his friend inside.

John looked well, just as he had a little over six weeks ago when he had been in town visiting his sister. The orange sun of an autumn evening silvered his hair, and he smiled brightly as his eyes alighted on the DI. He was dressed in a light jacket and a scarf to protect himself from the chilly September weather, and underneath the bulk he was as trim and fit as always. He thrust a bottle of wine into Greg's hands when he stepped inside.

"What's this for?" Greg asked, amused, as he accepted the bottle from John. He glanced at the label, nodding appreciatively, and set it aside to take John's coat and hang it on the rack.

"We're celebrating something, aren't we?" John asked with a half-smirk. "You sounded pretty pleased with yourself on the phone."

"Did I?" Greg didn't remember sounding - or feeling - anything but nervous. _Hello, my good friend, your best mate faked his own death and lives in my house, how about that! _Not exactly something to be pleased about.

"Yeah, yeah, that's why I asked if you'd proposed." He looked to Greg expectantly, as if waiting for a retraction of the DI's previous answer.

Greg grimaced and headed for the kitchen, beckoning John to follow. "Because marriage went so well for me the last time." He took down a couple of glasses and set the corkscrew to John's wine.

John shrugged. "You never know." Something seemed to catch his eye then, and he glanced past Lestrade toward the adjacent dining table. Curious, he brushed past his friend to get a better look. The table was spread with a map of London, which had various locations marked out in red. Tiny notes had been written in the margins, none of which were legible. "What's this, then?"

"That's... actually what I wanted to speak with you about," Lestrade began, abandoning the wine to join his friend. He stood across the table from him, the both of them surveying the annotated map together.

A frown had settled between John's brows, and he licked his bottom lip. "That's... odd."

"What is?"

"Well, that... I know it sounds silly, but this looks like his handwriting. I mean, Sherlock's. It's... uncanny." His gaze flicked to Greg's face, brows knit in confusion. "I put everything in storage ages ago."

"Okay, you should probably sit down for a second," Greg said. He looked past John to where Sherlock stood in the darkened threshold, waiting, anxious, wringing his hands. It was less than a moment, only a quarter of a second that his eyes lingered on that space, but it was much too long. John noticed the glance, and turned to follow it. At first his eyes widened as they noticed the shadowy figure standing there, and then he blinked them rapidly, apparently unable to reconcile what he was seeing. Trying to tell himself it was a trick of the shadows or some mental phantasm returned to haunt him.

Sherlock stepped out into the light.

For a long time, no one spoke. John took quick, shallow breaths as Lestrade looked on and waited for something to happen, waited for John to wind up a punch or double over and be sick. He could see the lines of tension etched into his shoulders, and that strain was reflected in Sherlock's posture as he stepped forward, slipping his hands into his pockets in an attempt to appear as nonthreatening as possible. They were locked like this, the three of them, frozen in time with their eyes on one another as they waited tensely for the ice to melt.

Into the silence, Sherlock said just two words, and as he did, there was a clear and razor-sharp pain in his eyes.

"Hello, John."


	5. Requiem

John was struggling. Lestrade could only imagine that he was fighting with himself as a dozen impulses fired off at once, vying for dominance amid the clamour of those frightening words: Sherlock is alive. What do you do? How do you react? What do you say? He was taking deep, controlled breaths through his nose, and his right hand reached for the back of a chair, as if to hold himself up. His knuckles were white as his fingers wrapped around it.

"John," Greg said gently. "Perhaps you should sit down, and - "

"No," John interrupted sharply, the word clipped and cold. "No. Explain."

Sherlock shifted his weight, and his expression was dark with guilt and uncertainty. No one spoke.

"One of you," John snarled, "explain this, now."

"It was a trick," Sherlock said, not moving from the mouth of the hallway. His fever-bright eyes stayed locked unblinkingly on John. "A hoax. The world had to think I was dead, or Moriarty would have killed you. Lestrade, too. And Mrs. Hudson."

"So you thought it would be a good idea to just..." John trailed off into a wordless growl and turned as if to leave. He was three steps from the door when he doubled back, jaw set, and placed both hands upon the back of the chair he had been bracing himself on only moments ago. He bent over it, sucking down a few steadying breaths, his eyes on the floor. "A hoax," he repeated. "A trick."

"John," Greg started again, cautiously.

John's head whipped up and fixed on Lestrade. "You knew about this?" he demanded, his tone accusatory and hurt.

Greg shook his head, but it was Sherlock who answered.

"Nobody knew," he said, still maintaining the space between himself and John. It was clear from the way he held himself back that he wasn't sure how to offer comfort, so he stayed where he was and took his cues from John's behaviour. "I had help from one person, but that person does not know I am here - "

"Molly Hooper," John interrupted. A muscle in his jaw set and reset arrhythmically. "I knew it. I knew it. She refused to let me see the body. I _told _you something was wrong, Greg, I told you..." He dissolved into bitter laughter, shaking his head, his eyes once again on the floor as if he were too disgusted to look at either of them.

"You have to understand it was the only way," said Sherlock.

In one fluid movement, John had straightened and rounded on him, closing half of the space between them with just a few steps. "You were gone three years! You let me think you were _dead_! You made me _watch_, and I thought you were _killing yourself_! Do you not understand that? Do you not understand what I - no. No, of course you don't. How can you be expected to?"

Greg stepped around the table, his eyes flickering between his two friends. He felt their pain exquisitely, and especially shared in John's, but he sensed that the situation was rapidly spinning out of control, and that John was fast approaching his breaking point. He reached out a guiding hand. "Listen, just sit down and take a breath, okay? Sherlock can explain everything."

"Shut up," John snapped, glancing only for a moment at Greg before his eyes returned to Sherlock's. "You could have told me - "

"No, the illusion had to be complete - "

" - we could have found another way - "

" - he had assassins poised to - "

" - but you knew - "

" - I did it to keep you safe, John!"

"Don't give me that!" Without warning, John was stepping forward, reaching out, shoving Sherlock back hard. It was enough to send a healthy man stumbling backward, but Sherlock seemed to feel the blow acutely in his ribs and injured shoulder, and it ripped a raw, involuntary cry of pain from him as he reeled back. He caught himself on the wall as Greg stepped between them, and the DI was tangling strong fists in the material of John's shirt before either of the other two could react.

"That's enough!" Lestrade barked. His face was very close to John's, and he waited until the doctor's struggles died. After two failed attempts at throwing him off, John gave up and stood there, chest heaving as he turned bright, wet eyes on Greg's face. His breath keened in his throat and he was shaking faintly. Slowly, the DI released his shirt, but kept one hand firmly planted over John's solar plexus. "That's enough now. Sit down, and let him explain, and then you can go or you can stay, but first just _listen_."

John's weary eyes slid from Lestrade to Sherlock and back again, and he looked for all the world as if he had entered upon his very worst nightmare and wanted nothing but a way out, an escape from the ghost of the friend he had once had and now spent his days and nights pretending to have forgotten. He licked his dry lips and stared at the empty space over Greg's left shoulder. "What's wrong with him?"

Greg looked back at Sherlock, who had recovered his balance and stood awkwardly off to the side, anxiously watching, conflict evident on his pale features. Lestrade's dark eyes returned to meet John's again, and they mirrored the sadness visible in those deep pools of azure. The answer was complicated. What was wrong with Sherlock? A lot of things. A whole mess of things, and Greg had only touched the tip of the iceberg.

"What is it?" John pressed.

"Shoulder," Greg said at last. "Pretty bad."

"That's why you called me."

Greg felt his heart seize. "Only partially. Just listen, would you, please? That's all I'm asking."

John nodded, tight-lipped and wordless, and it was enough for now.

* * *

An hour later, the three of them were seated in the living room, and Sherlock was finishing his tale as John worked over him, draining and stitching the infected wound with the limited equipment contained in a small black bag taken from the boot of his car.

"I don't understand," John said, his voice distant as he focussed on his work.

"Seems to be a trend," Sherlock mused aloud. "What don't you understand?"

"You faked your suicide to appease Moriarty's plan and keep us alive - "

"And dismantle the network - "

"Right, and that took three years, and we had to think you were dead that whole time? Why didn't you... I don't know, send some sort of sign? A message? Why couldn't Molly have told us? He's sleeping with her, for Christ's sake - "

"You are?" Sherlock looked up sharply at Lestrade.

The DI coloured deeply. "Well... not that it's any of your business..."

John snapped his gloved fingers in front of Sherlock's face. "Focus! Why did we have to think you were dead for three years?"

"It had to be seamless. There could be no holes in my story. If you knew I wasn't dead, you would not have reacted appropriately. Moriarty would have had someone watching you, he had plans in place, and insurance that these plans would be carried out. If one of them happened to pick up on the fact that you knew something, and found out that I was alive, they would have killed you then and there."

"But he _died_. He shot himself in the head three feet from where you were standing - it's basic _Art of War_, kill the general, immobilise the troops."

"No," Sherlock said brusquely. "Not at all. Moriarty's organisation was vast and well-managed. There were people functioning in positions of relative power, who would make sure his plans were carried out even in the event of his death."

"What motivation would they have had to do all this work once the man who signed their paychecks was dead?" John pulled the thread taut with a little more force than was necessary.

Sherlock huffed, rolling his eyes at John's naivety. "The accountant cuts the paychecks, John, not the general."

"Still - we could have helped you. You could have found a way to let us know after... I don't know, an 'appropriate' amount of time had passed. Or you could have warned us beforehand and then directed us how to act, if you were that worried about it."

"I was otherwise engaged. I had no means of 'directing' you, as you put it. Furthermore, involving you in my plans would have put you right in the midst of the danger I was trying to save you from." Sherlock sighed impatiently, his head dropping backward against the back of the couch.

"Anyway," Lestrade interjected, before the discussion got too heated, "apparently there's still one agent in London."

John's face underwent a rapid change from annoyance to concern. "Here? One of Moriarty's people is here?"

Sherlock nodded, his features dark. "I have an idea where, but he is going to be a difficult fish to catch. I nearly had him once, back in Brazil, but he slipped through my net."

"And then he nearly got you shortly after you came back to London," Greg added grimly.

John tied off his last stitch and rubbed an antibiotic creme over Sherlock's shoulder. "This is ridiculous," he said, shaking his head stiffly as he pressed a bandage over the wound. "You're a fucking idiot." He snapped his gloves off and closed his bag before standing and running his fingers through his short hair. "You could have just told me, a long time ago, and all of this could have been avoided. I know, I know, your seamless illusion, but I'm not seeing it, Sherlock. I'm not seeing why there wasn't an alternative. This... I just..."

"You would have been killed otherwise."

"So instead it's acceptable for me to watch you get killed?"

"I wasn't killed."

"_I didn't know that_!" cried John. "None of us knew that it was a trick! To us, it was real, Sherlock, it _felt_ real! That's what you keep failing to understand, what you've never understood. You hurt people when you deceive them. The witnesses you intimidate, the friends you trick - it's a tool to you, a way of getting what you want, but to us it's not pretend. It's really happening." He looked at Greg, shaking his head again in incredulity. "You _cried _at his funeral, haven't you got anything to say?"

Stunned, Greg opened his mouth to speak, to make another attempt at defusing the situation, but Sherlock stood, and both men's eyes were on him then. He shrugged his shirt back on and stepped around the coffee table, disengaging himself from the cramped space of the corner where he had been trapped by his friends on either side. "I'm sorry," he said clearly, his gaze lingering on Greg and then John by turns. "I am _sorry_. If I had thought there was an alternative that would still meet all the requirements as a final solution, I would have acted differently."

"Three years is a long time," John said softly.

"It wasn't meant to take that long," Sherlock admitted. "And I had... hoped... that when I did return, it wouldn't be... like this."

With a long, thoughtful sigh, John sat back on the sofa, kneading his left hand with his right. "Are you going to tell anyone else?"

"Not immediately," Sherlock replied.

Greg straightened up in his chair, leaning forward to address John. "You don't have to forgive him, but listen: there's one man left of Moriarty's network. I think we can take him down if we work together, and Sherlock agrees." One glance at Sherlock said that he was going quietly along with it rather than actually agreeing. "John. He'll be back for real if this gets done. No more hiding."

"I'm supposed to care?" John laughed mirthlessly. "The two of you, honestly."

"John..."

John's face was unreadable, and he refused to look at either of them. He remained silent, staring at his hands in his lap, and Lestrade imagined what must be going on behind that deep-set frown of his. For Greg, there was no question about whether he would help or not. He was angry, too, of course - he had been deceived just as John had, but for some reason... For some reason the shock of seeing Sherlock back, and the fear of losing him for real, had been too much to bear, and had quelled his anger. Now all he wanted was to get this last piece of the nightmare swept under the rug and try to restore some normalcy to his friend's life.

Three years was a long time, though, as John had said. Lestrade had seen how he struggled after Sherlock's death, how he had fallen apart. Sherlock hadn't been around for that part. Sure, he might have known about it, might have heard through his own little grapevine about how John was getting on, but hearing about it and being there were two very different things. Greg was certain that this was one thing Sherlock would never, ever understand, now matter how hard he tried. And Greg could do nothing but cling to the hope that it wouldn't damage the love between the only two people he really thought of as close friends.

At last, after a pause that had seemed to stretch on for hours, John gave a resigned sigh. "So... Tell me about this guy, the one you leapt out of a window to evade."

Greg felt a glimmer of a smile pull at his lips. It wasn't a yes, but it was as close to one as they were going to get right now. With time, the rest might fall into place.

From his place beside the mantelpiece, Sherlock scowled - but it was not the dark, haunted scowl of his new self. This was the contemplative, Sherlock-on-the-case scowl of Before, and it sent a tiny, tentative thrill through Greg's chest to see it. The dark-haired detective stared off into the middle distance. "He's clever," Sherlock said. "Clever and dangerous and hell-bent on finding me. And he knows I have been hunting him."

John frowned at what he perceived to be dramatics and leaned forward, bracing elbows on knees as he listened with measured interest. "And... why is this particular criminal so dangerous?"

"He's not just a criminal," said Sherlock, turning eyes of icy grey toward his long lost friend. "He was Moriarty's second-in-command, and his only mission is vengeance. His name is Sebastian Moran, and he wants very dearly to kill me."


	6. Lament

"Sherlock isn't dead, and there's a criminal mastermind here in London trying to kill him."

It was half midnight. Sherlock, literally swaying under the strain of their meeting, had been forced to retire a little after eleven. Now, Lestrade and John were alone in the sitting room before a crackling fire, each of them cradling a tumbler of scotch.

"It's a lot to take in," Lestrade agreed, nodding. He cast a wary glance at John, and could see the stress etched into the lines of his face.

But John was shaking his head. "That's it, though, Greg - that's the thing. _It's not_. This whole thing, all of this, is so... so incredibly, painfully _Sherlock _that... I'm not even sure why I'm surprised, honestly..."

It made a lot of sense when he put it like that. Greg couldn't help nodding his agreement, shrugging in surrender as he contemplated the swirling amber contents of his glass. Maybe that was why he himself hadn't taken very long to adapt to this new world where Sherlock was alive and hiding in his house. It was just the next step. It was fitting, appropriate, very _Sherlock_, as John had put it. But then again, maybe it was just that he was desperately clinging to the hope that they could return to the way life was Before. Perhaps he was setting himself up for disappointment. "What will you do?"

"I don't know," John sighed, sipping half-heartedly at his drink. It was clear from his expression what his conflict was. He was hurt and angry and wanted to walk away, but he couldn't, because it was Sherlock. His best friend, back from the dead after three long years. "I just... I don't know."

Greg was unsurprised. "Look, it'll take some getting used to. It did. It does."

"_You _seem pretty well-adjusted."

He huffed a laugh into his glass. "Please," he said between sips. "My situation's a bit... different. You were dragged into this; I wasn't. Not like he called me up one day, 'Hey, I have a guy I need to kill, wanna help? And oh by the way, I'm alive.'"

John watched his face as he talked, and Greg had the impression he was being scrutinised for every word. "Then, what did happen?"

"I found him in my bed one night, starved and bleeding, and thought I'd gone completely mad." Lestrade drained his glass.

"Oh," was all John managed to that.

"He didn't want my help. I thought he was gonna bolt."

"And he didn't because...?"

Greg shrugged and topped off both their glasses. "Not sure. Maybe I convinced him not to. Maybe he really didn't want to leave. I donno. But here we are, and now I'm gonna see this Moran into the ground."

"You're awfully sure of yourself."

"You will be, too. Eventually."

John bristled visibly and opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off when Greg held up a hand for silence.

"I'm not asking anything of you, mate," Greg said gently. "I'm not telling you what to do - all's I'm saying is, I think you've already made your choice. You're still here, after all."

The expression on John's face said it all. _Yes, I am. I'm not sure why, but I am._

"It's late," continued the DI. "Why don't I get you set up in the spare room, and we'll look at things again in the morning."

With a heavy sigh, John nodded and finished off his drink. "Yeah, okay."

* * *

Two AM, and then three, both came and went as John stared at the ceiling. He listened to the unfamiliar sighs and groans of the old house and wondered if he was dreaming. Perhaps he'd finally snapped from the strain. He worked too much, way too much, because it was the only thing that kept his mind in the present. Maybe he'd worked himself to insanity.

At five minutes past three, John pinched himself. At seven minutes past, he opened a window and let the cool autumn air fill the room. At ten minutes past, he knew that he wasn't crazy and that sleep was not in his future. He shrugged his shirt back on and padded softly down the hall to the kitchen.  
He was surprised to see that the light was on when he got there. A wiry, dark-haired figure in a dressing gown and pyjama bottoms was leaning on the worktop with his back to the doorway, but turned round when John came in.

"Oh," John murmured, hesitating in the threshold. "I..."

"I was just leaving," Sherlock stated swiftly, despite the obvious fact he had been waiting for the kettle to boil. He pulled his dressing gown close and stepped past John, avoiding his gaze.

John almost let him go, knowing it would be easier to avoid him a while longer than it would be to actually try to speak to this spectre. But the easy thing was also the cowardly thing. Sherlock was alive, and there was no denying it. And for the time being, in this house at least, there was no avoiding him. "No," he said quickly, moving to the doorway in time to see Sherlock freeze just outside the kitchen. "No, it's fine. Stay."

Warily, Sherlock turned to face John, calculating eyes inspecting him cautiously.

"Tea then?" John crossed the kitchen to where Sherlock had been standing by the kettle, watching as the water shivered in agitation at the building heat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sherlock slink back into the room and hover over the adjacent dining table, apparently inspecting his map. John recognised right away the unease in his frame, the way he seemed to keep one eye on the door. He had seen this before, in other war veterans. He himself had exhibited the very same behaviour immediately after his return from Afghanistan, but it was an alien concept in Sherlock. Was it because of him, or other, more formidable enemies encountered over the last three years?

The kettle whined before John could muster up the courage to ask, and he shifted his focus to pulling down tea things in pairs. A moment later, he had two hot mugs steeping and the sugar bowl under an arm, and moved to where Sherlock was standing to deposit everything on the dining table, careful of the piled paperwork there.

The two of them sat with Sherlock's great map of London between them, and for a long time they were painfully silent. John wasn't sure what to say. Their encounter earlier had been less than friendly, and he still didn't have a very deep understanding of what was going on or why. For some reason, though, he could not bring himself to ask the questions. Apathy, he told himself. _I just don't care_. But even as those words crossed his mind, he knew they weren't true.

"It wasn't easy, you know," Sherlock broke in abruptly. His eyes were on his tea, and he did not lift his gaze when John stared at him from across the map. "Leaving you. Everything."

John felt his face flush. To be honest, ever since he'd gotten here last night, he'd given hardly a thought to how Sherlock was feeling in all of this. All he'd been concerned with was his own betrayal and hurt. He'd let himself get so wrapped up in it that it did not occur to him to try to see things from another point of view. Maybe that was what Lestrade had been trying to tell him before - that once he considered Sherlock's side of the story, he would have no choice but to let him back in.

"There were times when I thought of going to you - before I left London. I watched you for a long time before I left, and..." The detective paused, his thumb running restlessly over the handle of his mug in swift, repetitive strokes. "I saw how you... how it affected you. It would have been so simple to just step out of the shadows and say hello, so simple that I almost did it. Several times."

John swallowed hard to keep his voice from cracking. "And why didn't you?"

"They would have killed you." Now Sherlock's hand slid from his mug and balled into a fist against the table. "It didn't matter what I wanted, as long as that was true. I knew I had to dispose of the threat first."

"What happened?"

Sherlock looked up suddenly, his expression neutral as if he hadn't understood the question. His eyes searched John's face, trying to read something in the deepening lines around his eyes.

"Where did you go?" John clarified. "What did you do?"

"I told you." Sherlock's gaze darkened and he sipped cautiously at his tea.

"I mean specifically, I mean - "

"I went to America," Sherlock interrupted flatly.

John stared. "America?"

"As soon as I was fit enough to travel, I got on a plane to Florida. I had one solid lead on the rest of the network - Florida was the first link in a very long chain."

"Moran?"

"No. No, he didn't catch on until much later." Sherlock's smile was bitter and mirthless.

"So why am I not dead then?"

The detective blinked uncomprehendingly.

"Well, if he caught on to your plan eventually, why didn't he come after us?" John wondered aloud.

"Because by then, I was a serious problem for the Moriarty people." Sherlock shrugged with his bad shoulder and quickly hid the resulting grimace behind the rim of his cup. "Killing you wouldn't have gotten me out of the way. So he dedicated himself to finding me. I made it very difficult for him," he added vaguely.

"I see." John allowed the conversation to lapse, sensing that now wasn't the time for an interrogation, despite that he was desperate for more information. Wherever Sherlock had been all these years, whatever he'd been doing, perhaps he'd tell him one day. But now, in this atmosphere of distrust? Never. That much was obvious to John, from this conversation alone.

Sherlock sighed then, apparently lost in thought with his eyes on his mug and his thumb resuming its restless tracing of the handle's edge. John remembered something Greg had mentioned in passing before they'd both gone to bed.

"The violin?" he prompted, watching Sherlock from across the table.

At this, the detective looked up, his fingers stilling their nervous drumming. His interest was piqued, but guardedly - as if he were afraid John had gotten rid of the instrument long ago.

"I still have it," John assured him, trying and failing to hide the hint of a smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I almost put it in storage with everything else, but I would have been gutted if it had been damaged or stolen somehow, since you were... you know. So... I have it." He paused long enough to see the question flash in hesitant bursts over Sherlock's features, unvoiced but obvious all the same. "I'll bring it by."

"Thank you," Sherlock replied, his voice thick and heavy with relief, as if that one item could make all the difference.

They drank their tea in silence then. Sherlock seemed absorbed by the map - staring at it, his eyes flitting over the scrawled notes in the margins. John was about to leave when those eyes lifted suddenly, locked on his, and stayed there.

"Why did you keep it?" Sherlock asked without prelude. "The violin. Why keep it around if you knew I wasn't coming back?"

For a moment, John was wont to take offence to the question. It took him actively reminding himself who he was dealing with to quell that initial burst of anger, but it still smouldered in the background. "You... don't know?"

Sherlock's gaze dropped. "Sentiment," he guessed.

"Yes," John said, with a sigh. "Sentiment, Sherlock. Precisely. That's why I kept the violin. And... everything else."

"Everything else?" Two grey eyes dragged upwards to meet John's again.

"Most of our things from the flat. I couldn't... Couldn't do anything with it. So I just... tucked it all away." John fidgeted uncomfortably with his empty mug. "Except the... violin..."

"Mm," hummed Sherlock.

John picked up his mug and the sugar bowl. His chair squeaked backward across the floor as he stood. He put the tea things away and quietly placed his cup in the sink. "Right. Well. Goodnight - "

"John, I'm sorry."

"I - what?"

"I'm sorry. I am. I meant it. I'm... I'm sorry."


	7. Inversion

"The first place Moran will look for me is... here," Sherlock stated with surety, stabbing the map with an index finger.

John and Greg both leaned in over the table to see where Sherlock was pointing.

"Baker Street?" John asked incredulously. "That's the last place I would look for you. Why wouldn't he come here? Or to my flat?"

"Because he doesn't think I'm that stupid," spat Sherlock. He removed his finger from the map and clasped his hands behind his back. "He'll go to Baker Street, and he'll wait, because he knows I'm hunting him too. Even if I'm not there, I'll go looking for him there eventually."

Greg straightened and ran a hand through his hair, regarding Sherlock sceptically. "You're sure?"

"He wants to be found, Lestrade. He's not hiding from me, nor I from him. We're simply... biding our time."

"So you can kill each other," John chimed in, bitterly.

"Precisely."

"So... now what?" John asked, shrugging.

Sherlock only stared at John uncomprehendingly.

"Well," Greg interjected, "we kill him first, I imagine."

"Oh, brilliant, yes - let's kill him." Shaking his head, John directed a cool gaze at Greg. "You're the police, can't you do something that doesn't involve murder?"

Greg slid an uneasy glance in Sherlock's direction before meeting John's stare. "Well... no," he said slowly. "Fact of the matter is, we don't have any hard evidence linking him to anything illegal. And on top of it, he has a glowing reputation. He's a decorated officer, a war veteran. I've got nothing to bring him in on."

John sighed. "Then we need to come up with a plan. Lure him out of hiding in such a way that you can bring him in - on assault charges or something."

"You mean use me as bait," Sherlock concluded.

Lestrade's hand sliced the air between Sherlock and John. "No," he said firmly. "Out of the question."

Sherlock went on as though he hadn't heard. "It's not a bad plan, if we're careful about it. He'll be preoccupied with me, and you two can apprehend him when the time is right. No doubt he'll have some men with him, and with the proper application of force they might be convinced to betray potentially incriminating information. But my way is simpler."

"No more killing," John said coldly, his eyes locked on Sherlock's.

"He _is_ a murderer, you know." A dark brow arched upward.

"So are you," John shot back.

"That's different - "

"Enough, the pair of you!" Greg stepped between them and folded up the map, flipping it into one of the vacant dining chairs. "You're both thick. It won't work either way. You can't kill a man in broad daylight in the middle of Baker Street - especially if he's bound to have friends with him. And Sherlock's certainly not going to play bait. That's just inviting disaster. We'll have to come up with another plan."

John and Sherlock, however, were considering each other carefully, their minds working in tandem toward the same conclusion - a conclusion they both knew wasn't going to go over well with Lestrade, but which was by far the most effective plan yet.

"What if I do it?" John spoke up, tearing his eyes from Sherlock's to peer up at Greg. "I can hold my own in a fight just as well as Sherlock - maybe better, at the moment. Suppose I go to Baker Street. I can go in the back way, and with the drapes drawn the only thing Moran will see from across the street is that _someone_ is in the flat. He'll assume it's Sherlock."

"Oh for God's sake..." Greg whined, dropping down into one of the chairs.

Sherlock watched John across the top of the DI's head. "His men will be stationed at several points - one of them will see you going in."

"I'll wear your coat and scarf, and a hat. They won't be close to me, so they'll have no reason to think I'm not you. If I move quickly, under the cover of darkness, they'll be none the wiser."

"Unless they're smart enough to carry binoculars," Greg grumbled. "Or suppose they just snipe you from afar."

"They won't," Sherlock said at once. The detective's brow wrinkled in thought. "Moran himself is a sharpshooter. He won't have brought along an extra. And he wants me for himself, so they'll notify him of my - John's - arrival and secure the exits. John will show himself at the window just long enough for Moran to see him, and then he'll be careful to stay out of his line of fire. Without a clear shot, Moran won't risk scaring him away, so he'll come across and break into the flat. Once he's inside, Lestrade, you and I can take out his men - there will only be two or three of them - and apprehend Moran before he attacks John. The element of surprise will be enough to give us a second or two to act, and you'll have him on minor charges. That will buy us some time to dig up his past. It's almost perfect."

"It's as far from perfect as it could be," the DI stated harshly. His head whipped round to look at John. "You can't possibly think this is a good idea."

"No, but I do think it could work."

"And get you - or all of us - killed in the process! Did you not just get done saying this man is a sharpshooter?"

Sherlock pressed his palms together and rested his fingers against his chin. "Yes, and he will certainly be armed."

"Are you _hearing_ yourself right now?"

John set a heavy hand on Greg's shoulder. "It's a solid plan, Greg. As long as I'm careful, I should be able to keep myself out of harm's way long enough for you two to come up, and between the three of us we'll have no problem taking him down. As Sherlock said, we'll have the element of surprise on our side."

Lestrade's head dropped down onto the table, and he gripped his hair with both hands. "You're daft, both of you. What about his people?"

"We'll do our research first, of course," Sherlock snapped out, as though this should have been obvious from the start. "We'll know in advance how many people he's got with him, and what they're carrying. We'll have a plan in place for how to deal with them. If we aren't stupid about this, it's practically foolproof."

"Now you sound like your old self," said Lestrade, but it was not a compliment. He groaned into the table. "Is it any use for me to say I don't like this?"

"I imagine not," John replied thoughtfully. "We'll need to do some recon first, to figure out what we're up against."

"Quite right," agreed Sherlock. The spark in his eye was reminiscent of Before, but not in a way that cheered Lestrade in the slightest.

* * *

"It's _freezing_ in here."

"I told you not to come."

John huffed. "And I told you that you weren't going if I wasn't."

"Then it's your own fault," Sherlock responded impatiently.

The two of them were holed up in an abandoned flat on Baker Street, with their eyes on the building across from 221B. They were lying side by side on their bellies on the filthy laminate floor, watching through a gap in a boarded-up window for Moran's men. Troublingly, they were nowhere to be found - and hadn't been for the last eight hours.

"I'm only saying that we should try again tomorrow."

Sherlock shook his head and pressed closer to John to get a better view of the street. "No. He has to be here. It's the only logical place for him to be."

"Then why haven't we seen him? This feels like a trap." John's sixth sense about these things was well-trained. He practically had eyes in the back of his head, and right now they were seeing a million places for enemies to be hiding, waiting to ambush them on their way back downstairs or on the streets below. "It was much too easy to get in here..."

Beside him, Sherlock shivered, frowning through the gap in the boards. "Perhaps he's gotten impatient and gone looking for me. Any word from Lestrade?"

"He texted an hour ago. Still at the Yard. You don't think Moran would go to Greg's?"

"Not just yet. It's the last place _I_ would go."

"You did go there," John reminded him, breathing on his own fingers to warm them.

"Yes, and I was not in my right mind," Sherlock said for the hundredth time.

"Could he be at my flat?"

"No, he won't risk venturing that far when he last saw me here in London."

Frustrated, John shook his head. "How can you possibly know that?" he demanded.

"Because he's me."

"He's you. What?"

"Moran is Moriarty is me. He's here, somewhere. And I wouldn't dare leave London knowing he's here." It was clear that Sherlock was becoming weary of explaining it, but it was also clear that he shared in John's frustration. Why wasn't Moran where he ought to be? He shivered again and dropped his head to the floor, sighing into the dust. "It's cold." A pause, another sigh, and then: "Let's go."

But suddenly, John was staying him with a frantic grip on his arm. "Wait! Look!" he hissed, inching closer to the boarded-up window.

Sherlock's shoulder pressed into John's as he obeyed, squinting to see down into the street. They held their breath, watching through the semi-darkness as a shadowy figure exited 221B in a swirl of black skirts. A woman. Her hair was pinned up. She was humming pleasantly.

"Mrs. Hudson," said Sherlock softly, ducking his head to get a better view. "What is she doing?"

Johh shoved Sherlock's head out of the way and watched as Mrs. Hudson turned to cross the road, the streetlamps illuminating her in their orange glow. She was holding something. John narrowed his eyes and strained to see. "She's... oh, for heaven's sake, she's only taking a cup of sugar or something to a neighbour."

But Sherlock, now pressed bodily against John at shoulder and hip, was shaking his head vehemently. "No," he said. "No, no, no... she's going across the street. She's going to the empty house." Desperation edged into his voice, and he started to scramble to his feet. "Moran's there, as I thought he would be, she's going to him."

"Wait - Sherlock!" John leapt to his feet and grabbed Sherlock roughly by the arm, spinning him round to face him. As much as he wanted to believe that Sherlock was being paranoid, his own nerves were on edge, his body vibrating with the need to do something, knowing full well that his friend was right. Something was amiss. "Wait. Sherlock, this is a trap. Stop. _Stop._"

Sherlock was struggling to pull his arm out of John's hand. "Mrs. Hudson - "

"This. Is. A. Trap. You can't go over there."

"One of us has to!" From down the street, there was the sound of a door opening and closing, and Mrs. Hudson's humming was cut off from their hearing. She was inside. They were running out of time. "You're a better shot, you have to stay here and cover me."

"If you go in there, and he's there, he's going to shoot you where you stand! How the hell am I supposed to cover you from here?" John demanded.

"We're wasting time," Sherlock snapped, wrenching his arm out of John's grip. "Stay here. Call Lestrade. Keep an eye out." Without another word, he sprinted away down the hall, his footfalls echoing down the stairs and eventually down into the street.

"Damn it!" John threw himself back down on the floor, his right hand scrabbling in his trousers pocket first for his gun and then for his phone. He pressed his face against the window boards and watched as Sherlock's ghostly figure appeared on the street below, took one glance back at John, and ran across the street. John observed, his entire body on edge, as Sherlock stuck to the shadows, furtive as a cat, gun drawn as he approached the empty house.

Meanwhile, John's phone was pressed between his ear and his shoulder. Lestrade answered gruffly, and John wasted no time on pleasantries. "Baker Street. Vatican cameos." Sherlock's age-old code phrase for danger, duck, or run - whatever the case may be. He knew Lestrade would understand. He hung up before giving the DI a chance to respond, instead focusing all his mental power on watching Sherlock's back. He trained his weapon on the empty house, watching anxiously as Sherlock disappeared into it.

His short, rapid breaths stirred up dust on the floor as he waited for some sign of what was going on inside. He had heard no shouts, no gunshots. Sherlock had only been inside a few seconds, but it was quickly becoming even more obvious that John was useless here. The empty house probably wasn't even in firing range of his handgun; he needed a better vantage point. Sherlock's instructions be damned, he wasn't going to let him die again. Or lose Mrs. Hudson, either, for that matter.

"Damn it," John seethed again. He hesitated just for a moment, afraid to take his eyes off the door behind which Sherlock had disappeared, but resolved that he _needed_ to get down there if he had any hope of keeping his friends alive. He hurried to his feet, pocketing his phone and checking the clip on his gun, but he never got past the door.

A large, black-clad figure stood in his way, a cigarette smouldering on his lower lip. "Hello, John," drawled the stranger, in a honeyed voice that reminded John of both Mycroft and Moriarty simultaneously. Green eyes stared down at him coolly, illuminated by the glow of the cigarette butt. A pair of thin lips curled upward at one corner in a self-satisfied sneer: a cat that has caught a fat mouse.

Sebastian Moran.

John felt his heart seize as he brought his weapon to bear. _The trap was for me_. Time lurched painfully to a cinematic slow-motion crawl. His finger wrapped around the trigger. The firing pin reared back. The stranger took a single step forward and smashed John's temple with a fist that felt more like rock. John's gun went off, the bullet burying itself in dusty drywall on the other side of the room. He stumbled, dazed from the blow to his head, and lost his footing, crashing into a support pillar as his assailant closed the space between them. A black bag came down over John's head, followed by another crushing blow to the temple, and John distantly felt his gun slip from his fingers. He slid to his knees, bright pinpoints of light blossoming across his vision as pain burst across his skull. One more blow crashed into the side of his face, and John felt himself losing consciousness as he fell to the floor. _The trap was for me._


End file.
